Hey guys, I am currently looking for CP160 Night Mother's Embrace (overworld drop in Deshaan) and Night Terror (drops in Stormhaven) gear. Don't really care about traits or duplicates or style at present. I ESPECIALLY need a Night Terror hat (current hat is Ornate, which is like... ughhhh). If you find any, either let me know or just drop it in either the Ash Housewares or Pax Arcadia guild banks.
Welp, accidentally used my 150% XP buff scroll as I was opening one of the anniversary crates. I quickly ate my anniversary cake and logged off, so whenever I log in again I'm 250% xp grinding for 2 hours. I've heard I should just grind out Dolmens for that time?
Welp, accidentally used my 150% XP buff scroll as I was opening one of the anniversary crates. I quickly ate my anniversary cake and logged off, so whenever I log in again I'm 250% xp grinding for 2 hours. I've heard I should just grind out Dolmens for that time?
Dolmens are one of the more efficient ways to use that up if you find a zone where no dolmen is too far away from a wayshrine and it's a zone with enough people to clear out the dolmens quickly enough not to waste time (some zones do not have many players actively going after dolmens). Since the next dolmen in a zone's line spins up as soon as the previous one blows up it avoids normal respawn times and can be the highest exp per time spent that you do without a group.
Welp, accidentally used my 150% XP buff scroll as I was opening one of the anniversary crates. I quickly ate my anniversary cake and logged off, so whenever I log in again I'm 250% xp grinding for 2 hours. I've heard I should just grind out Dolmens for that time?
Dolmens are one of the more efficient ways to use that up if you find a zone where no dolmen is too far away from a wayshrine and it's a zone with enough people to clear out the dolmens quickly enough not to waste time (some zones do not have many players actively going after dolmens). Since the next dolmen in a zone's line spins up as soon as the previous one blows up it avoids normal respawn times and can be the highest exp per time spent that you do without a group.
I've been hanging out mostly in Auridon and I've yet to see less than a dozen players at any given dolmen so I think that seems like a solid plan.
So made a new character and am having more fun. Murdered a few townsfolk, stole some shit, not too bad. Off the noob island now so I will track down where the Outlaw dens is so I can start selling my stolen goods.
I seem to be pretty terrible at the stealth parts of this game, or games in general. I must have been horribly killed by guards at least 3 or 4 times in the first pickpocket quest.
I seem to be pretty terrible at the stealth parts of this game, or games in general. I must have been horribly killed by guards at least 3 or 4 times in the first pickpocket quest.
Pickpocketing is often not worth the trouble it can cause. Something to be aware of besides the standard "wait for that bonus you briefly get for waiting a few seconds before a swipe:"
Choose targets carefully. Beyond the basic no going for a target with a higher chance to detect you (basically anyone other than a beggar or at most a commoner when you don't have points in the passive), npcs besides your target can spot you as well so risk of failure increases with more people around.
I seem to be pretty terrible at the stealth parts of this game, or games in general. I must have been horribly killed by guards at least 3 or 4 times in the first pickpocket quest.
Pickpocketing is often not worth the trouble it can cause. Something to be aware of besides the standard "wait for that bonus you briefly get for waiting a few seconds before a swipe:"
Choose targets carefully. Beyond the basic no going for a target with a higher chance to detect you (basically anyone other than a beggar or at most a commoner when you don't have points in the passive), npcs besides your target can spot you as well so risk of failure increases with more people around.
Yeah, beggars are the best to start with until you can get a couple points in the +10% chance passive...the other is fishermen, which I think are as easy as beggars only better because they are down by the docks all alone!
Vulkhel Guard is a great city for pickpocketing all up and down the dock, but there are plenty of other port towns available.
Picked this for xbox during the sale. Subscribed for the crafting bag. Having fun so far. Made s dark elf assassin, who's very fun, but I'm kinda wanting to start a templar too.
Picked this for xbox during the sale. Subscribed for the crafting bag. Having fun so far. Made s dark elf assassin, who's very fun, but I'm kinda wanting to start a templar too.
Oh hey, what level should I be doing dlc?
Also dungeons
DLC -- Depends on what you want to do, sorta. Are you into larceny, murder, or orcs? Pick based on this.
-OR-
Thieves Guild has the best writing by far, followed by Orsinium. DB is shaky in terms of actual writing, but features cameos from some folks from the main quests, so I'd wait to complete it until after you've met Naryu Virian, Razum Dar, and Raynor and Kireth Vanos (two of my favorite NPCs actually, vastly underrated).
Dungeons -- Normal mode until you hit CP160 dude, you don't want to run into the mess that is Veteran until then. But before then, feel free!
Nightblades (assassins) are really fun, but I will say that Templars, especially Templar Healers, are currently more valued in endgame content like dungeons. HOWEVER, Nightblades excel at the TG and DB quests. Turns out being able to go invisible on a whim without potions and getting big fat bonuses from being sneaky helps when you need to, y'know, be sneaky :P
Picked this for xbox during the sale. Subscribed for the crafting bag. Having fun so far. Made s dark elf assassin, who's very fun, but I'm kinda wanting to start a templar too.
Oh hey, what level should I be doing dlc?
Also dungeons
You don't have to worry about doing things at any particular level! The whole game is scaled, you won't find yourself at a strong disadvantage anywhere.
Start Dark Brotherhood, at least do the first 10 minutes, which will get you the Blade of Woe, which is fun to mess with (but be careful not to be seen using it). Thief Guild DLC is more fun IMO but you can do DB first, or both concurrently, whatever. Wrothgar is great BUT has no cool skill line associated with it. Just a neat story.
I really really really REALLY love how this game expands the lore for... gosh, SO MANY ES races, but especially the Khajiit, Argonians, and Orcs. Like, MAN.
I ran into some great argonian concepts in Coldharbour that makes me feel like I missed out on things that are really well developed in their actual zone.
It's quite fun. Handy in non stealth/crime content to early on though eventually you can instantly kill stuff with a melee heavy attack from sneaking up on them anyway.
Yeah guild stores are super clunky, especially on console where you don't have the benefit of addons to assist you in searching.
Even without a global auction house many materials are essentially worthless anyway, so I wonder if the added barrier to trading is accomplishing what it was designed to do.
Enjoying the heck out gameplay and exploring. Fun finding little bits of ES lore.
Wouldn't mind seeing the design documents that led to this crafting system, not enjoying that a bit.
Trait research takes a while to get going but you do definitely feel a difference between someone who's only casually invested in it and someone who has put thought into it over time. Not having a way to track items you still need to research in the base game is kind of a pain. While a few traits never get used, especially on weapons, almost all of the armor traits do see use on different character types.
It's a lot easier to level up the equipment crafting skills compared to other games too. This is the first crafting system I can think of where I didn't have to grind out junk gear just for the sake of grinding skill points. Deconstructing stuff for materials, researching traits, and doing crafting writ dailies was enough to get the skill to max.
Downside is that the trait materials and quality improvement materials are shared between all levels of gear but you wind up with a ridiculous amount (I have 4 stacks of hemming in my bag, possibly 5) that it's not a huge deal down the line.
Also just found out how guild stores work in lieu of an auction house. Oofda. That's a thing, eh?
It's a pain and not an approach that scales well with more players. There are plenty of casual trade guilds and even the one with a great location I'm in has some pretty to meet sales/purchase goals but even as someone that benefits from having less competition for my goods I find it to be a pain and annoying (and am quite aware that people in trading guilds who talk about how great having decentralized trade locations still try their best to get around that decentralization with add ons that scrape pricing data globally). It's workable even for a casual player but more annoying that it really needs to be.
So, anyone planning ahead to your future warden build?
I'm kind of torn between doing a stamina-based archer that uses all the animal skills (and plant heals) or a straight up sword/board heavy armor frost tank. Both seem fun.
So, anyone planning ahead to your future warden build?
I'm kind of torn between doing a stamina-based archer that uses all the animal skills (and plant heals) or a straight up sword/board heavy armor frost tank. Both seem fun.
an orc named Princess Punchfist who only uses the Cliff Racer skill
I really really really REALLY love how this game expands the lore for... gosh, SO MANY ES races, but especially the Khajiit, Argonians, and Orcs. Like, MAN.
Really everyone gets a lot of love, especially since before only the Dunmer, Nords, and Imperials had really been explored in depth. The Altmer were interesting because we never really got a pov from that side before and they managed to make them into a faction that seems legitimately to want to improve the world and is hindered only by their horrible horrible racism.
BTW, do we know who was responsible for the expanded lore here?
Was it writers from earlier in the series, or a new team with someone's blessing? Did they operate off of established canon where possible or is it a bit fast and loose (despite being pretty good)? Is all this canon going forward or can we expect Bethesda to promptly ignore the look and feel of whichever zone they pick for ES6?
BTW, do we know who was responsible for the expanded lore here?
Was it writers from earlier in the series, or a new team with someone's blessing? Did they operate off of established canon where possible or is it a bit fast and loose (despite being pretty good)? Is all this canon going forward or can we expect Bethesda to promptly ignore the look and feel of whichever zone they pick for ES6?
Eh. Supposedly it's canon, but it's pretty wonky in places. I could go into the lack of jungle in Cyrodiil (and how painful the transcription error excuse is), or how some major stuff in the game should not have been able to happen with so many of the Towers still intact / activated, or books being present despite not being written yet in the timeline, but it's kinda a depressing hole to fall into. (Especially with some of the rumors swirling about upcoming content.)
But Bethesda does the same sort of changes, so it's nothing new with the series. So yeah, it's canon, but yeah, Bethesda might very well ignore anything and everything in this game when they get around to making TES:VI.
BTW, do we know who was responsible for the expanded lore here?
Was it writers from earlier in the series, or a new team with someone's blessing? Did they operate off of established canon where possible or is it a bit fast and loose (despite being pretty good)? Is all this canon going forward or can we expect Bethesda to promptly ignore the look and feel of whichever zone they pick for ES6?
Eh. Supposedly it's canon, but it's pretty wonky in places. I could go into the lack of jungle in Cyrodiil (and how painful the transcription error excuse is), or how some major stuff in the game should not have been able to happen with so many of the Towers still intact / activated, or books being present despite not being written yet in the timeline, but it's kinda a depressing hole to fall into. (Especially with some of the rumors swirling about upcoming content.)
But Bethesda does the same sort of changes, so it's nothing new with the series. So yeah, it's canon, but yeah, Bethesda might very well ignore anything and everything in this game when they get around to making TES:VI.
Just chalk it up to a Dragon Break that we have not been made aware of. It's easier that way.
BTW, do we know who was responsible for the expanded lore here?
Was it writers from earlier in the series, or a new team with someone's blessing? Did they operate off of established canon where possible or is it a bit fast and loose (despite being pretty good)? Is all this canon going forward or can we expect Bethesda to promptly ignore the look and feel of whichever zone they pick for ES6?
So okay speaking as an ex-dev...
TL;DR -- Everything's made up and the gods don't matter.
...
Wait okay so let me start again and preface this by saying that I was a bottom-rung QA intern meant to be taken in for six months and burned through to get launch to happen. So I had limited access to things. And maybe this is shit that I'm not supposed to talk about under NDA but fuck it, it's been three years and I already tried working for them again and was shot down so whatever.
There is an internal wiki/database of lore. There is a H U G E internal database of lore that is shared between ZoS and Bethsoft Main. I believe its origins go back to the very beginning of ESO. Keep in mind, ZeniMax Online Studios was founded in 2007, before Fallout 3. There's actually ancient screenshots in the MMO side of the internal database I mentioned that show an EXTREMELY early concept test of ESO built in Oblivion's engine. It's weird and creepy.
So yes, this database predates Skyrim. Not in its current form, mind; I think it currently runs on Atlassian Confluence; when it was created god knows what it was.
The portion that I personally had access to was mostly surface stuff designed to give writers ground rules and to give QA an idea of what to fix if we found especially bad lore/continuity issues. Tbh on our end, this was more like "This Argonian is talking like a Khajiit" and by the time *I* was working on it, that stuff wasn't even QA's jurisdiction anyway.
So, surface guidelines are stuff like "Argonians don't talk in the 3rd person; that's a Khajiit thing," slightly deeper stuff like "Do not EVER create an actual depiction of what an Akaviri looks like." (which was important for a few quests) and "don't ever confirm what happened to the Dwarves."
I believe there was a deeper section of this thing to which I didn't have access where ALL the lore is.
Which is to say, Elder Scrolls lore is, as of 2007-ish, a really big collaborative document where LOTS of devs come to consensus on things. It's honestly a good thing -- much as I love Michael Kirkblade's Weird Shit, I'm pretty sure the games would be utterly incomprehensible if he was in charge of ALL the lore. There's usually one person who is on as lore director for the general direction of things (iirc for ESO it was Lawrence Shick, previously most famous for having written the old D&D adventure White Plume Mountain, one of my favorites), but most of their job (iirc) is more to *wrangle* the massive pile of Stuff in the database, and to cross-check the stuff the writing team is doing.
Remember, games like this aren't written by one person -- there's dozens, hundreds of rotating writers. I think that old writers who were especially influential to certain aspects of the lore get contacted for advice even if they aren't actively on the team (people like, again, Michael Kirkblade). And remember that Todd Howard has been on the team since Daggerfall, so he's had a lot of influence on the writing/direction of the series.
TL;DR -- it's kind of a big, wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey collaborative fiction, which imho really works for the series. AND, because of how that all works, I can almost guarantee that lore from ESO will end up in TESVI.
Kind of building on that, the card game, Legends, has stuff from as early as at least Daggerfall (not sure about Arena) and several cards from ESO, so yes, ESO will be influential going forward.
Even in the games themselves Cyrodiil hasn't been tropical since fucking Daggerfall.
AND ON A RELATED NOTE, regarding the Khajiit and the whole "Bluh bluh their bodies change based on the moons / senche cats are just as intelligent as Khajiit"
I"m going to be honest, ESO had some of the best treatment of slavery, colonization, imperialism, and general interplay between ethnic groups I have seen in a game.
Most of the quibbles people have are minor and I think people throw the baby out with the bathwater a bit.
Even in the games themselves Cyrodiil hasn't been tropical since fucking Daggerfall.
[sni]
As far the books in the games go, the game writers have played coy with the matter for as long as it has been an issue (with the games themselves not really touching the topic, unless Arena showed jungle terrain or something). It's "largely forested" (not committing either way). It was a transcription error. Talos did it with CHIM / a Dragon Break. The transcription error was from way back in the second era (or earlier). It was the White-Gold Tower, changing the land away from the jungles that the Ayleids favored, starting way back in 1E 243!
But none of those explain why the notion of a jungle-covered Cyrodiil lasted so long into the third era. Even the explanations that suggest a more recent change, leave centuries of confusion regarding the heart of the Empire, a land that doesn't have the degree of exploration-discouraging dangers that exist in Valenwood and the Black Marsh. Theories like the White-Gold Tower one just exacerbate the issue, by putting the change even farther back.
At this point it may just as well have been a Dragon Break that not only distributed its effect backwards in time, but also created alternate realities that got merged back periodically over centuries, thus resulting in maintaining enough folks with a Cyrodiil-related Mandela effect to mess things up. The logistics of that honestly give me a headache.
Of course, the books in Elder Scrolls games are fallible and not to be fully trusted; in the setting, they are typically written by mortals trying to explain their own world, so it makes sense for things to be wrong here and there. And ultimately, it was just a small retcon, one that didn't undo any game events or major lore. But it was a retcon that arguably happened twice, and the in-game explanations were weak in an attempt to use the ambiguity of Elder Scrolls lore to smooth things over. But because there's enough certain information (unlike the mythology stuff) to throw a wrench in those explanations, they fail to satisfy those who really sink their teeth in. It should have been a simple clean contradiction, but the writers got ambitious and now it does not make sense.
But eh, it's only lore. Honestly, faulty Khajiit compasses bother me more than Cyrodiil, and they sorta make sense.
I still think now is a time to post my favorite Elder Scrolls fanfiction ever, because it's relevant to complaining about lore / contradictions / all that shit:
Thanks for all the info Lucid_Seraph! Good to know that so many people are involved, I was feeling more like it was probably apocryphal due to the difference between ZOS and Bethesda. Also I didn't know old school DnD people were involved, that's amazing.
Thanks for all the info Lucid_Seraph! Good to know that so many people are involved, I was feeling more like it was probably apocryphal due to the difference between ZOS and Bethesda. Also I didn't know old school DnD people were involved, that's amazing.
My greatest regret is that I didn't remember to bring my copy of White Plume Mountain to the ESO launch party. I could have gotten that shit signed, man.
also, even though ZOS and Bethsoft are seperate, 1. They're about an hour from each other by car if you're not fucking around during rush hour, 2. We mostly know each other and communicate quite a lot, 3. Even if we somehow didn't communicate, we'd all end up at the same fucking bars because Maryland is a small state, okay? I ran into my direct supervisor's husband at a local LARP recently and now we're best friends
*edit* and, knowing how even those of us who got into Elder Scrolls via ESO (me) end up feeling about the lore, even if there was no "official" communication between the studios (which there is, a lot of ) if anyone on EITHER side fucked it up, there would be an actual barfight. Like, various "~nerd friendly~" bars in MD would become warzones. You would not be able to go to the local goth club because some damn Elder Scrolls or Fallout devs would be fighting.
*edit2* Maryland feels very strongly about the following things, in order: Old Bay spice, the proper preparation of crab (NEVER SERVE IT COLD, CALIFORNIA, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU), the Baltimore Orioles, the Elder Scrolls, and Fallout (the last two on approximately the same tier)
(when your state is this small and this unknown you get Very Protective of things)
(after the latter two, it's Jousting [the state sport], Renaissance Faires [SUCK IT, PA], LARP [SUCK IT, DELAWARE AND JERSEY], and communism)
Posts
Not me, because the game never told me that I could do that.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Dolmens are one of the more efficient ways to use that up if you find a zone where no dolmen is too far away from a wayshrine and it's a zone with enough people to clear out the dolmens quickly enough not to waste time (some zones do not have many players actively going after dolmens). Since the next dolmen in a zone's line spins up as soon as the previous one blows up it avoids normal respawn times and can be the highest exp per time spent that you do without a group.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
I've been hanging out mostly in Auridon and I've yet to see less than a dozen players at any given dolmen so I think that seems like a solid plan.
Pickpocketing is often not worth the trouble it can cause. Something to be aware of besides the standard "wait for that bonus you briefly get for waiting a few seconds before a swipe:"
Choose targets carefully. Beyond the basic no going for a target with a higher chance to detect you (basically anyone other than a beggar or at most a commoner when you don't have points in the passive), npcs besides your target can spot you as well so risk of failure increases with more people around.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Yeah, beggars are the best to start with until you can get a couple points in the +10% chance passive...the other is fishermen, which I think are as easy as beggars only better because they are down by the docks all alone!
Vulkhel Guard is a great city for pickpocketing all up and down the dock, but there are plenty of other port towns available.
Oh hey, what level should I be doing dlc?
Also dungeons
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
DLC -- Depends on what you want to do, sorta. Are you into larceny, murder, or orcs? Pick based on this.
-OR-
Thieves Guild has the best writing by far, followed by Orsinium. DB is shaky in terms of actual writing, but features cameos from some folks from the main quests, so I'd wait to complete it until after you've met Naryu Virian, Razum Dar, and Raynor and Kireth Vanos (two of my favorite NPCs actually, vastly underrated).
Dungeons -- Normal mode until you hit CP160 dude, you don't want to run into the mess that is Veteran until then. But before then, feel free!
Nightblades (assassins) are really fun, but I will say that Templars, especially Templar Healers, are currently more valued in endgame content like dungeons. HOWEVER, Nightblades excel at the TG and DB quests. Turns out being able to go invisible on a whim without potions and getting big fat bonuses from being sneaky helps when you need to, y'know, be sneaky :P
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
You don't have to worry about doing things at any particular level! The whole game is scaled, you won't find yourself at a strong disadvantage anywhere.
Start Dark Brotherhood, at least do the first 10 minutes, which will get you the Blade of Woe, which is fun to mess with (but be careful not to be seen using it). Thief Guild DLC is more fun IMO but you can do DB first, or both concurrently, whatever. Wrothgar is great BUT has no cool skill line associated with it. Just a neat story.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
It's quite fun. Handy in non stealth/crime content to early on though eventually you can instantly kill stuff with a melee heavy attack from sneaking up on them anyway.
Also works on dremora, not just the player races.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Wouldn't mind seeing the design documents that led to this crafting system, not enjoying that a bit.
Also just found out how guild stores work in lieu of an auction house. Oofda. That's a thing, eh?
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
Even without a global auction house many materials are essentially worthless anyway, so I wonder if the added barrier to trading is accomplishing what it was designed to do.
Trait research takes a while to get going but you do definitely feel a difference between someone who's only casually invested in it and someone who has put thought into it over time. Not having a way to track items you still need to research in the base game is kind of a pain. While a few traits never get used, especially on weapons, almost all of the armor traits do see use on different character types.
It's a lot easier to level up the equipment crafting skills compared to other games too. This is the first crafting system I can think of where I didn't have to grind out junk gear just for the sake of grinding skill points. Deconstructing stuff for materials, researching traits, and doing crafting writ dailies was enough to get the skill to max.
Downside is that the trait materials and quality improvement materials are shared between all levels of gear but you wind up with a ridiculous amount (I have 4 stacks of hemming in my bag, possibly 5) that it's not a huge deal down the line.
It's a pain and not an approach that scales well with more players. There are plenty of casual trade guilds and even the one with a great location I'm in has some pretty to meet sales/purchase goals but even as someone that benefits from having less competition for my goods I find it to be a pain and annoying (and am quite aware that people in trading guilds who talk about how great having decentralized trade locations still try their best to get around that decentralization with add ons that scrape pricing data globally). It's workable even for a casual player but more annoying that it really needs to be.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Thank you for new thread title.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
I'm kind of torn between doing a stamina-based archer that uses all the animal skills (and plant heals) or a straight up sword/board heavy armor frost tank. Both seem fun.
an orc named Princess Punchfist who only uses the Cliff Racer skill
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
So I got distracted and made an Atmer DragonKnight instead. CHARGING ALL THE THINGS Wizzz KAPOW!
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
Really everyone gets a lot of love, especially since before only the Dunmer, Nords, and Imperials had really been explored in depth. The Altmer were interesting because we never really got a pov from that side before and they managed to make them into a faction that seems legitimately to want to improve the world and is hindered only by their horrible horrible racism.
Was it writers from earlier in the series, or a new team with someone's blessing? Did they operate off of established canon where possible or is it a bit fast and loose (despite being pretty good)? Is all this canon going forward or can we expect Bethesda to promptly ignore the look and feel of whichever zone they pick for ES6?
Cause... they keep killing themselves.
"Oh hey, that was a great adventure and we really made a connection there!"
"Sorry friend, I am not excited about this but I need to go kill myself by that tree to make the grass look pretty again. Bye."
You probably shouldn't get too attached to any npcs you meet in ESO . . .
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
They get better later on, thankfully. Walks-Softly and Green-Venom-Tongue both have pretty healthy senses of self-preservation. Especially Walks.
on a related note, this is an NPC that exists:
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Remains-Silent
and yes, you can <Remain silent.> at her.
It's a very quiet conversation.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Eh. Supposedly it's canon, but it's pretty wonky in places. I could go into the lack of jungle in Cyrodiil (and how painful the transcription error excuse is), or how some major stuff in the game should not have been able to happen with so many of the Towers still intact / activated, or books being present despite not being written yet in the timeline, but it's kinda a depressing hole to fall into. (Especially with some of the rumors swirling about upcoming content.)
But Bethesda does the same sort of changes, so it's nothing new with the series. So yeah, it's canon, but yeah, Bethesda might very well ignore anything and everything in this game when they get around to making TES:VI.
Just chalk it up to a Dragon Break that we have not been made aware of. It's easier that way.
So okay speaking as an ex-dev...
TL;DR -- Everything's made up and the gods don't matter.
...
Wait okay so let me start again and preface this by saying that I was a bottom-rung QA intern meant to be taken in for six months and burned through to get launch to happen. So I had limited access to things. And maybe this is shit that I'm not supposed to talk about under NDA but fuck it, it's been three years and I already tried working for them again and was shot down so whatever.
There is an internal wiki/database of lore. There is a H U G E internal database of lore that is shared between ZoS and Bethsoft Main. I believe its origins go back to the very beginning of ESO. Keep in mind, ZeniMax Online Studios was founded in 2007, before Fallout 3. There's actually ancient screenshots in the MMO side of the internal database I mentioned that show an EXTREMELY early concept test of ESO built in Oblivion's engine. It's weird and creepy.
So yes, this database predates Skyrim. Not in its current form, mind; I think it currently runs on Atlassian Confluence; when it was created god knows what it was.
The portion that I personally had access to was mostly surface stuff designed to give writers ground rules and to give QA an idea of what to fix if we found especially bad lore/continuity issues. Tbh on our end, this was more like "This Argonian is talking like a Khajiit" and by the time *I* was working on it, that stuff wasn't even QA's jurisdiction anyway.
So, surface guidelines are stuff like "Argonians don't talk in the 3rd person; that's a Khajiit thing," slightly deeper stuff like "Do not EVER create an actual depiction of what an Akaviri looks like." (which was important for a few quests) and "don't ever confirm what happened to the Dwarves."
I believe there was a deeper section of this thing to which I didn't have access where ALL the lore is.
Which is to say, Elder Scrolls lore is, as of 2007-ish, a really big collaborative document where LOTS of devs come to consensus on things. It's honestly a good thing -- much as I love Michael Kirkblade's Weird Shit, I'm pretty sure the games would be utterly incomprehensible if he was in charge of ALL the lore. There's usually one person who is on as lore director for the general direction of things (iirc for ESO it was Lawrence Shick, previously most famous for having written the old D&D adventure White Plume Mountain, one of my favorites), but most of their job (iirc) is more to *wrangle* the massive pile of Stuff in the database, and to cross-check the stuff the writing team is doing.
Remember, games like this aren't written by one person -- there's dozens, hundreds of rotating writers. I think that old writers who were especially influential to certain aspects of the lore get contacted for advice even if they aren't actively on the team (people like, again, Michael Kirkblade). And remember that Todd Howard has been on the team since Daggerfall, so he's had a lot of influence on the writing/direction of the series.
TL;DR -- it's kind of a big, wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey collaborative fiction, which imho really works for the series. AND, because of how that all works, I can almost guarantee that lore from ESO will end up in TESVI.
Kind of building on that, the card game, Legends, has stuff from as early as at least Daggerfall (not sure about Arena) and several cards from ESO, so yes, ESO will be influential going forward.
See also:
See also: http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Credits#Design
(Man it's interesting -- a lot of the old D&D guys from the TSR days are on that list...)
NOW
REGARDING THE FUCKING TROPICAL CYRODIIL THING
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Subtropical_Cyrodiil:_A_Speculation
Even in the games themselves Cyrodiil hasn't been tropical since fucking Daggerfall.
AND ON A RELATED NOTE, regarding the Khajiit and the whole "Bluh bluh their bodies change based on the moons / senche cats are just as intelligent as Khajiit"
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:The_Moon_Cats_and_their_Dance
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Most of the quibbles people have are minor and I think people throw the baby out with the bathwater a bit.
But none of those explain why the notion of a jungle-covered Cyrodiil lasted so long into the third era. Even the explanations that suggest a more recent change, leave centuries of confusion regarding the heart of the Empire, a land that doesn't have the degree of exploration-discouraging dangers that exist in Valenwood and the Black Marsh. Theories like the White-Gold Tower one just exacerbate the issue, by putting the change even farther back.
At this point it may just as well have been a Dragon Break that not only distributed its effect backwards in time, but also created alternate realities that got merged back periodically over centuries, thus resulting in maintaining enough folks with a Cyrodiil-related Mandela effect to mess things up. The logistics of that honestly give me a headache.
Of course, the books in Elder Scrolls games are fallible and not to be fully trusted; in the setting, they are typically written by mortals trying to explain their own world, so it makes sense for things to be wrong here and there. And ultimately, it was just a small retcon, one that didn't undo any game events or major lore. But it was a retcon that arguably happened twice, and the in-game explanations were weak in an attempt to use the ambiguity of Elder Scrolls lore to smooth things over. But because there's enough certain information (unlike the mythology stuff) to throw a wrench in those explanations, they fail to satisfy those who really sink their teeth in. It should have been a simple clean contradiction, but the writers got ambitious and now it does not make sense.
But eh, it's only lore. Honestly, faulty Khajiit compasses bother me more than Cyrodiil, and they sorta make sense.
http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1430120-this-many-goblins-left-the-cave/
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
My greatest regret is that I didn't remember to bring my copy of White Plume Mountain to the ESO launch party. I could have gotten that shit signed, man.
also, even though ZOS and Bethsoft are seperate, 1. They're about an hour from each other by car if you're not fucking around during rush hour, 2. We mostly know each other and communicate quite a lot, 3. Even if we somehow didn't communicate, we'd all end up at the same fucking bars because Maryland is a small state, okay? I ran into my direct supervisor's husband at a local LARP recently and now we're best friends
*edit* and, knowing how even those of us who got into Elder Scrolls via ESO (me) end up feeling about the lore, even if there was no "official" communication between the studios (which there is, a lot of ) if anyone on EITHER side fucked it up, there would be an actual barfight. Like, various "~nerd friendly~" bars in MD would become warzones. You would not be able to go to the local goth club because some damn Elder Scrolls or Fallout devs would be fighting.
*edit2* Maryland feels very strongly about the following things, in order: Old Bay spice, the proper preparation of crab (NEVER SERVE IT COLD, CALIFORNIA, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU), the Baltimore Orioles, the Elder Scrolls, and Fallout (the last two on approximately the same tier)
(when your state is this small and this unknown you get Very Protective of things)
(after the latter two, it's Jousting [the state sport], Renaissance Faires [SUCK IT, PA], LARP [SUCK IT, DELAWARE AND JERSEY], and communism)
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Our local crustacean is different than Maine's, but you'd probably like it here.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
wait
WAIT
you live here?
why haven't we gone drinking yet?
*e* Is it because I keep threatening to stab you? I threaten everyone that way.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/